Apocalyptic Epics and Killer Crime Thrillers by Robert Chazz Chute
Author: rchazzchute
Robert Chazz Chute writes full-time from his blanket fort in Other London. The winner of fifteen writing awards, he pens apocalyptic epics with heart and killer crime thrillers with muscle. A graduate of the University of King's College journalism program, he studied book and magazine publishing at the Banff School of Fine Arts. He has worked as a crime reporter, science journalist, editor, book doctor, speechwriter, and magazine columnist.
This is so strong because, of course, it pops. It’s also in keeping with the feel of the other covers in the series (only more so)!Resurrection, A Hit Man Thriller is the fourth novel in the series but can be read as a standalone.
In the first three books of the Hit Man Series, the suspense unfolds and the action speeds along from an unusual POV: second-person, present tense. There was a good reason for that. Jesus Diaz, my funny Cuban hit man, copes with his struggles by imagining he’s in a movie. Given his unusual and torturous childhood, it’s expected he’s a little wacky. In Resurrection, the story is told from Lily Vasquez’s point of view. She was Jesus’ girlfriend in Bigger Than Jesus. Hunted by the mob, she’s just as deadly as her ex and will do anything to stay alive and free.
The storytelling in Resurrection is perhaps more in line with what readers of the genre expect. However, it’s still packed with jokes, sexiness and clever action sequences. You’re going to love the movie in your head.
Special thanks go to Kit Foster of Literartydesign.com who came through with this surprise killer cover.It’s a great match for this killer crime thriller.
I’ve been working for a long time to build up to this moment. I love getting new books out into the world. It was a ton of hard work but I just hit publish on a short story collection, a box set, and a new thriller! Then, this morning, the car had to go to the shop, the drugstore informed me that something our insurance had covered no longer did and bam! There’s that nasty eye infection. HA! Crazy ups and downs, right? Ow, my eye hurts.
Still, it’s a good day. I’m at the coffee office waiting to hear from the garage, working away fairly happily and waiting for my doctor’s appointment this afternoon. I can complain, but not too much.
The new books, Rob. Tell us about the books!
Available now on Amazon in ebook and paperback.
My funny deadly hit man, Jesus Diaz, is back in Resurrection, A HIt Man Thriller!
In Bigger Than Jesus, his goal was to escape New York’s Spanish mob. His ex got out of the gangster life with two bags of stolen mob money. Now the Machine is after her. Hunted and cornered, the little Cuban hit man and the lovely Lily Vasquez will have to team up to survive. Lily is deadly, too. When trouble comes knocking, she asks herself, what would Jesus do?
Sometime Soon, Somewhere Close is available on Amazon in ebook and paperback. The ebook is only 99 cents!
Seven crimes, seven stories. This anthology (only 99 cents!) will keep you turning pages through the night. Each short story is set in a different place but each one hits hard, sometime soon, somewhere close. Discover the gripping story behind the missing fisherman in Nova Scotia. In Detroit, witness the aborted birth of a monster. In Ames, you’ll find a bullied boy’s inelegant solution to stop his pain. I love these shorts. Bonus, the anthology is not that short. There’s plenty of meat in this collection of new fiction to keep you reading through the night. Enjoy!
The fun of this series comes from the witty dialogue, hardboiled action and a whole heapin’ helpin’ of “How the heck is he going to get out of this one?” The storytelling is unusual and the plots are unpredictable.
For a limited time, the first three books in the Hit Man Series, are available in this e-box set for just 99 cents! I know many of my readers discovered my fiction because of my most popular series, This Plague of Days. I appreciate it, but I hope some zombie/vampire/human conflict fans will give my noir crime stories a chance, too. (You get all the action and all the fun of three suspenseful thrillers for less than a buck. In print, it would be over 700 pages!) So, if you don’t know Jesus, get Bigger Than Jesus, Higher Than Jesus and Hollywood Jesus all in one fun package.
BONUS: Not sure about taking on the roaring rapids in Resurrection? You’ll get a sneak peek at Resurrection, A Hit Man Thriller at the end of the box set.
I’m off to yet another doctor’s appointment now, but despite life’s speed bumps, I’m feeling great about these new books. You’re going to have a lot of fun with them. I had a great time writing them, especially the Nova Scotian dialogue in Sometime Soon, Somewhere Close. Some of us talk a little funny so…well, you’ll find out.
Happy reading!
~ I write suspenseful books in several genres. Just when you’re sure you know what’s about to happen, something else surprising will happen. I’m always on the hunt for super readers. Please sign up for updates here and if you dig my sling, please spread the happy word by reviewing the books on Amazon. Thanks!
As I write this, it’s July 1. I’m in a coffee shop. Some smooth jazz is going down easy in the background as my caffeine boost brings me up. And I’m grateful. It’s been a year since I left the day job that was killing me so I could devote all my time to writing books. And here’s the kicker: I probably couldn’t do this if I lived somewhere else. Canada supports the arts and, indirectly, my art.
Before anyone complains about taxes…
Due to 2018 being a weird year financially, I had to work out a payment plan to pay my taxes. However, I’m getting my money’s worth from my country. A year ago I had emergency eye surgery to save the vision in my left eye. This spring I got hit hard by pneumonia and, aside from the $8 for the taxi to the hospital, the ordeal cost me nothing. It would have been free if I’d had to call an ambulance. We take care of each other.That’s a good sign of a healthy society.
Unfortunately, many of my friends have to choose between medical care and paying the rent or buying food or paying off exorbitant student loans. They spend a lot of time scared. What if that’s not a bump? What if it’s a lump? When life-saving insulin costs so much, how much do they dare ration their medication? None of these friends are Canadian.
The Delusion
It’s a popular notion that starving artists make great art. It’s taken as a given that food insecurity is a motivator. No, please don’t try to craft a virtue out of cruelty. When you have to worry about the basics, all other endeavors suffer. Stress and suffering are not noble. Requiring stress and suffering of others doesn’t make anyone a hard-charging go-getter. When art happens in egregious conditions, it’s not because of the egregious conditions. That value bubbles up despite horrible circumstances.
Suffering is poison. The pushy tech-bro is anti-life. The outlier story of the rugged individualist who owes nothing to anyone is propaganda. It’s the lie that tells people who already have two jobs that they’ll be worthy of love and their families will be safe if only they’d work just a little harder. The mania of constant overwork does not serve humans. We are not robots but the propagandists would have people work like machines, at least until they can be replaced by machines.
Think you can live on your own and don’t need anybody else to succeed? Actually, we’re all in this together. Businesses need a healthy economy supported by people making a living wage and paying taxes. Think of yourself as a rugged individualist? When your retina tears spontaneously as mine did last year, are you going to perform the surgery with a mirror, a butter knife, and a welding kit? I don’t think so, Butch.
It’s not a little ironic that abrasive guru Gary Vaynerchuk says, “Fear kills growth.” Fear of disease, illness, and failure to care and provide for our loved ones kills more growth than any uncompromising motivational speech can overcome. We are all worthy of love, whether we’ve “earned” it or not. Suffering is poison, but so is the conviction that you can’t be seen until you’re rich and famous.I do work hard, but any success that may come my way will not rise from the pain of another.
Don’t wait until people are famous to love them.
There’s a common expression I despise: “So-and-so is doing well.” That’s code for, “So-and-so is making a lot of money.” Okay, good for them. But is so-and-so doing any good? Your worth isn’t all in your wallet.If that were true, late-stage capitalism would ensure only a handful of people are worthy of love and care.
Despite my frustrations, I’m not here to condemn anyone. I’m writing today to express my love for the benefits of living in Canada. It’s a stretch for me to pay my taxes this year in particular, but better that than saddled with a crippling medical debt that would bankrupt me if I lived elsewhere.
To paraphrase George Carlin, it makes sense to be glad to be Canadian. Pride overlooks the fact that my citizenship is an accident of birth. I was lucky enough to be born here. I didn’t earn my citizenship. That’s why I’m also glad to say that we take in many immigrants. People who work hard to get here and gain citizenship earn what I have the privilege of taking for granted.
Apologies
Canada is not perfect.Like any country, Canada has problems. Those frets need to be addressed but we’ve got a lot of love around hereto help fuel the solutions.As long as care and compassion are guiding principles, we surely can’t go too far wrong.
I am so grateful that our country is not seen as a great power full of threats. Instead, our reputation is that of a people who are so polite we apologize too much. Better to say sorry too often than not at all.
I’m a writer in Canada, feeling safe, sound and productive.
Yes, if you look closely you’ll see my autographed photo of Kevin Smith.
Please note: What follows is a post from my Facebook Fan Page. If you’ve read my books and dig what I do, you could join us for daily updates, peeks behind the curtain, excerpts from my work in progress and assorted fun bits of nonsense from Ex Parte Press.
I have revised 20,000 words of Bright Lights, Big Deal. I have 93,000 to go. I’ll probably end up cutting a lot of that down. For every book I write, I keep an ODDS file. In this file, I put all my deleted passages, the boring bits, the inappropriate bits and stuff that doesn’t work or serve the story.
I wrote Bright Lights, Big Deal a very long time ago, before This Plague of Days. It’s been interesting to see what I did then and how I’d do things differently now. The differences are fairly subtle most of the time. The later, genre stuff is more action-oriented. I’d say my main sin from back in the day is that my prose was too Canadian. By that I mean there was too much emphasis on character rather than plot movement. I like it when a lot of stuff is happening and character is revealed in reaction to the action.
Same thing happened with This Plague of Days. Originally, it was a plague novel but it was not a zombie novel. I wrote the first book with no zombie content. It was more about society falling apart and how the disaster affected one family. As I wrote and revised and wrote and revised, I added more action because (shrug and smile): too Canadian. (I wanted to write something commercial with the literary aspect in the background.)
There isn’t much Canlit I really like. I have a Robertson Davies reference in Amid Mortal Words. I liked Atwood’s Oryx and Crake but couldn’t get through The Handmaid’s Tale. The Canadian sci-fi I read was Spider Robinson, Robert J Sawyer, and William Gibson.
The writing I love is mostly from American writers: Heinlein, Truman Capote, Stephen King, and William Goldman. (I went through a Norman Mailer phase in university but got past it.)
Who are the authors you most admire? What books are on your must-read or must-read-again list?
My top ten list is:
1. The Color of Light by William Goldman. 2. The Stand by Stephen King. 3. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (loved all the movies, too, but especially the version with Phillip Seymore Hoffman.) 4. Boys and Girls Together by William Goldman. 5. The Princess Bride (Goldman again for the win.) 6. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth. 7. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. 8. The Hot Zone by Richard Preston (the only book that ever truly scared me) 9. The Tommyknockers by Stephen King (wild card choice a lot of fans wouldn’t put in their top ten but I loved it and learned a couple of writing tricks from it, too.) 10. Stephen King On Writing, more for the biography than the writing advice. I’ve read it once and listened to it twice.
I’m looking at favorite books I didn’t write, of course. Choosing favorites from my backlist is like asking me to choose a fave child.
You ever have one of those dreams where you have to do something but something else keeps getting in the way? Maybe you’re running from a monster but you’re waist-deep in mud? Something like that happened to me last night. I hosted a party at a remote farm. The setting was perfect for a sorority party massacre a la bunches of bad ’70s slasher B-movies. As the last car was leaving, I called to the woman in the landrover, “Can I get a ride back to civilization?” She nodded but waved for me to hurry. That’s when it turned into a nightmare as the last-minute tasks were loaded up. If I didn’t finish locking up quick I would lose my ride.
As I recall, the list of scenarios was something like:
1. Check the barn for lit lanterns. 2. Check the house to make sure the water was turned off. 3. Solve the Mystery of the Old Mill with the Hardy Boys. 4. Confront a huge monster lurking in the cattle stalls. 5. Wash and dry the dishes and put them away. 6. Deal with a snake in the basement.
The tasks went on and on and, always in the background, the pressure built. I was going to lose my ride and be stuck on this Hell Farm of Eternal Night. The woman waiting in the landrover really amped up the tension and put a clock on the plot. It’s conflict and tension among believable characters that get the story engine chugging.
Anyway, all that nonsense got me thinking about the underlying themes and worries beneath the main action in my books. What’s the big fret our heroes and heroines have to deal with when other missions and side-missions are done?
Here’s my list:
1. This Plague of Days: How’s a mute kid on the spectrum going to save the world from a global pandemic of zombies?
2. AFTER Life: What’s a SWAT officer and a nanotech research scientist to do when they tap into the collective consciousness of a zombie uprising about to invade the United States?
3. Brooklyn in the Mean Time: How is such a flawed protagonist going to solve the mystery of his father’s criminal past?
4. Bigger Than Jesus: How does a hitman get out of the mob and overcome his past?
5. Higher Than Jesus: How does a hitman get past his addictions to save the girl?
6. Hollywood Jesus: Can a hitman go legit? How does he become a hero when everyone, including the FBI, is after him?
7. Wallflower: How does a failed comedian go back in time to save the world?
8. Haunting Lessons: Why is it that a young woman can see ghosts and what does a secret society of assassins have to do with it?
9. Death Lessons: The woman who sees ghosts must return to her home town find a secret weapon to deal with unearthly forces? What’s the weapon?
10. Fierce Lessons: How does a secret society of assassins deal with incursions from another dimension?
11. Dream’s Dark Flight: Why are people around the world dying in their sleep in bizarre ways? How can an NSA analyst, a doctor and a physiotherapist stop the killings from an isolation tank at Berkeley?
12. The Night Man: When a wounded warrior returns home searching for a life of peace, how can he untangle himself from dirty cops, bomb plots and the criminality of his own family?
13. Robot Planet: When the last few humans combat a robot uprising powered by the Next Intelligence, how can they win against such a powerful enemy?
14. All Empires Fall, Self-help for Stoners and Murders Among Dead Trees: How can a writer sell anthologies? Sure, there are several award-winning stories in the mix but literary anthologies aren’t huge sellers. (Self-help for Stoners is really kind of a novelty bathroom book that sells some paperbacks in the run-up to Christmas each year, so there’s that.)
15. Amid Mortal Words: If you had a book that could eliminate all the people who make the world a more dangerous place, would you? How many dead innocents would be acceptable to you?
~ I’m Robert Chazz Chute. In that dream I mentioned at the top? I missed my ride. Alas. I spend my waking hours writing apocalyptic epics, killer crime thrillers, and assorted science fiction and horror. Please click on the links to the right to pick up your next binge read. Cheers!
I’m on the wrong career track. I want to write for a living but I want to write stories that last.
What I learned at the Banff School of Fine Arts:
I’m much funnier than they gave me credit for in university. Maybe that was because I wasn’t so angry all the time as soon as I got out of journalism school.
What I learned in my 20s:
I used to believe a bad thing: Pay your dues. Be patient. Wait your turn.
(What was implied: “This has nothing to do with keeping us up by keeping you down.”)
What I learned in my 30s:
I wanted to be a spiritual person for the comfort. It didn’t stick because I looked honestly at all the suffering.Also, I unlearned the lesson from my 20s. Underestimating me and keeping me a second-class citizenwas always about fulfilling other people’s dreams.
What I learned in my 40s:
My kids redefined love for me. They expanded my capacity.
What I’ve learned in my 50s:
Not everyone who acts like a friend really is. Unfortunately, learned that lesson before but I think this time I really get it. Betrayal sucks and sticks.Not everyone you meet along the way will stay by your side. For those who do, we cherish and support each other. We stick together.
What I know now:
Dream bigger. Ask for help. Work like hell to make it happen.
I have yet to learn:
Forgiveness. Yes, I hold grudges. In AFTER Life, the flawed hero admits that he supposes he must have forgiven somebody once but he can’t think of a single example of having done so.That’s me. I’m not sure that forgiveness is something I want to learn, either. If someone treats me badly, shouldn’t heightened vigilance and isolation simply be called learning? People can make mistakes and I’ll let that go, of course. (I’m Canadian.) But when malice is involved? Hell, no.
People often ask writers where their ideas come from. My answer, no matter how crazy the premise of the book, is real life. Here’s a look behind the curtain with a couple of my most recent books and why their origins are relevant to you.
Earlier this year, I released The Night Man, a thriller set in rural Michigan. It’s about people who go outside the law because of crushing medical debt and medical bankruptcy. (Think: Breaking Bad but with more German Shepherds.)
I believe medical care is a human right. Insurance agents with profit agendas shouldn’t get in the way of diagnosis and treatment by doctors. Nobody should be condemned to death or poverty because they get a scary diagnosis. No one should have to choose between seeing their doctor or paying rent. I was recently diagnosed with pneumonia and have seen many doctors for several problems over the last few months. I’d hate to think where I’d be if I had to choose between financial security and health!
In the United States, the richest nation on Earth, universal health care is often rejected out of hand because of the stigma of socialism. This is despite the fact that every other First World nation provides some form of universal health care to protect their citizens at lower cost and with better outcomes. Some patients even opt for suicide rather than burden their families with debt. How can this be? How can this still be?
Reality often fuels fiction. Unacceptable and challenging situations provide a context that readers can relate to. Powerful motivations make people do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. So it is in The Night Man. Easy Jack’s father turns to smuggling to try to escape medical debt. Complications ensue and events spiral out of control.
Then came Amid Mortal Words. It is a story I did not intend to write. I have several books in my editorial pipeline and I thought I was done with apocalyptic books for a while. I was supposed to work on revisions to those stories first. However, Amid Mortal Words woke me at 4 a.m. every morning. It was a story that pestered me, insisting on being written. Writing the book was the only way to get some sleep and it turned into a wild story. I like it a lot and I hope you will, too.
The plot to Amid Mortal Words springs from a lot of anger I’ve observed in real life. Everywhere you look on social media, there’s a war on. It is a domestic war in the United States but it is not confined to American borders. Political norms have been shattered. Expectations have been lowered.
The currency in this war is hatred and fear. The consequences often translate into physical violence. Sexism is still thick on the ground and women’s rights are more endangered, not less. When called out for their racism, racists cry foul. Voting rights are suppressed and the democratic system undermined. Climate change isn’t a far off theory. Climate breakdown is here.As one character tells another in Amid Mortal Words, “It’s a fuckle.”
There are solutions to our problems. Some stand in the way. Thinking selfishly and short-term, there are many who believe that saving the planet, practicing empathy and accepting equality is too expensive, too impractical and bad for business. These folks act like the idea that we should care for each other is suspect. Ideals are out the window and it’s every mad dog for himself.
All this in 2019? We could have done better by now. We should have, but for those who are only out for themselves, sexism, racism, and many other ills are a feature, not a bug. It’s not that they don’t know better. It’s that they don’t care.
Personally, I’ve made a transition in my thinking. I used to believe that rational debate and better education would save everyone from the worst of us. I thought good ideas would win because it was in the common interest to have a society that works for everyone. I now accept that, in a strange way, I was underestimating people’s intelligence. Many people who support the actions of Donald Trump knew what they were doing when they elected him. They weren’t all fooled. They knew his long history of sexism and racism. It wasn’t that they were deceived. They got the candidate they wanted. Now the United States is divided, not exactly down the middle but close. The rhetoric is harsh. I’ve heard Alex Jones call for decapitations (and then pull back from that call later, subtly.) I saw a comment on a thread where some nutbag called for a “cleanse” of libtards. There’s a fascinating podcast called It Could Happen Here that gives the odds of a new American civil war serious analysis and consideration. Subversion of the due process of law has turned a lot of conservatives into Banana Republicans.
And no, the vitriol is not equal on both sides. You can point to one or two lies by Obama while Trump is north of 10,000. He’s dangerous and is not in control of all his faculties. One day, assuming we’re lucky, we will look back on these days as very dark and dangerous times. America is not headed toward a constitutional crisis. It’s in one right now. The Democrats are, in general, responding weakly. The Republicans will back their guy right to the brink. It is so sad this devolution is happening because so many of us love America and its people. This is the nation that produced a top-notch space program, Iron Man and Spider-Man for God’s sake!
And so it came to pass that Amid Mortal Words posed the question: If you could get rid of everyone who is making the world a worse place, would you? What if you could do it simply by reading a book or reading the book to someone? And what if there is collateral damage? How many deaths of innocents are acceptable on the way to utopia? I never set out to write a theme. Themes emerge in the writing.Otherwise, the story would devolve into preachy and boring.Though Amid Mortal Words is not a straight-up liberal revenge fantasy. It’s packed with action and mysteries. Respect is given where it is due. There are answers but they aren’t all easy answers. I’m talking about impact. AMW will move you. Some of those answers are going to leave readers thinking a long time after they close the book.
I think there’s something in these books for people no matter where they are on the political spectrum. Heh. I guess I do still hold out some hope that I’ll be able to change some people’s minds by bypassing their fear responses and entertaining them. No matter. You don’t have to agree with me to have a great time staying up all night, pulling your head into my books and turning pages.
I am, first and foremost, in the brain tickle business. My priority is telling an action-packed and interesting story that entertains you. My books can take some very fanciful turns at times but the core ideas are often rooted in reality. That foundation in what’s happening now is what makes the characters real, motivated and relatable. That’s certainly true of Amid Mortal Words and The Night Man. Despite all the violence, twists and mayhem in my books, there’s heart and meaning in the subtext that propels the plot.
I hope you take the time to check them out and enjoy them.
